The experience of Jesus can help us to appreciate why our Blessed Mother wants to prepare us for battle against the Evil One after having urged us to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit. St. Luke tells us what happened to Jesus after He had been baptized: "Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, for forty days being put to the test by the devil." (Luke 4:1).

Our Blessed Mother, therefore, is well aware of the fact that when we open ourselves to God's Holy Spirit and are experiencing his grace, the devil will cdertainly try to confuse us and to thwart God's plan for us. For this reason, after she helped us to open our hearts to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, she is now guiding us ow to be prepared to fight in the 'spiritual warfare' against Satan.

It is remarkable that our Blessed Mother in her programme for this 'spiritual warfare' follows very closely St. Paul's guidelines given to the Christians of Ephesus who were experiencing the forces of evil in the midst of a materialistic and morally very corrupt world:

10-11 "Grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of His power. Put on the full armour of God so as to be able to resist the devil's tactics.
12 For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavenly places.
13 That is why you must take up all God's armour, or you will not be able to put up any resistance on the evil day, or stand your ground even though you exert yourselves to the full. So stand your ground, with truth a belt round
14 your waist, and uprightness a breastplate, wearing for
15 shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the good news
16 of peace. Above all taking the shield of faith so that you can use it to quench the burning arrows of the Evil One.
17 And then you must take salvation as your helmet, and the
18 sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God, by means of all your prayer and supplication, praying in the Spirit on
19 every possible occasion. Never get tired of staying awake to pray for all God's holy people..." (Ephesians 6:10-20).

It is important that those who are following these Spiritual Exercises of Our Lady give special attention to this text of Scripture before starting with the messages

In our struggle against the Evil One we can fight effectively only with God's power, given to us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These become for us like "God's armour" which we have to put on "so as to be able to resist the devil's tactics."